The Deaf vs. The Colorblind

On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 09:50:26 -0700, Bret Ludwig wrote:

[snip]
But in one way the two groups have a conflict. Tower signal lights are
used for signalling aircraft that are NORDO, having red and green
lights. These are the very colors not separable by victims of the most
common type of colorblindness. Retiring the signal lights would be
beneficial to the colorblind, but devastating to the deaf.

If they would just change the color of one of the lights, most everyone
would be happy. If they changed the white or green light to be blue or
yellow, I think it would be fine. I'm just not sure if those colors can
be seen as far away as white/green light (doubtful). Of course, that also
implies changing the color of one position light on planes and owners may
squawk at that.

Signal lights, in of themselves, are not problematic. It's the dang
colors they picked which is the problem.


Greg